After a good night's sleep we both felt much better this morning so we headed off to
our last "must-sees."
View down the Columbia River Gorge from I-84.
The first stop was Multnomah Falls, the biggie of the many Columbia River Gorge waterfalls. It's big both in height at 693 feet and in reputation. The water comes down in two tiers with a splash pool at the bottom of each tier. A story on one of the plaques tells of a 400-ton rock which fell 225 feet off the upper falls on Labor day weekend 1995, crashing down into the pool at the bottom. It caused such a huge splash it drenched the members of a wedding party who were on the bridge. What uncanny timing.
The falls are accessed from parking lots at the bottom, both on the Historic Columbia River Road and from a special parking lot between the eastbound and westbound sides of I-84. We got lucky in deciding to go to the I-84 lot where we found a space we could get into. (The river road lot was already full and traffic was blocking the road as far as we could see.) The paths and bridge were extremely crowded, even at 10:45 on a Monday morning. We're so glad we didn't try to get near it over the weekend.
The bridge was clogged with people taking pictures, so we waited our turn, took a few shots and got out of there as quickly as we could.
Having seen the one waterfall we knew we could get to, we headed back to Portland (35 miles) to Washington Park.
View of downtown Portland buildings and the Willamette River from I-5.
View from Rt 26 uphill to the Goose Hollow area. These buildings have a view of all these gorgeous trees.
After battling very heavy traffic, we made it to Washington Park, a very large area which is the home of various museums and gardens. It's a good thing we didn't want to go to the museums because the area was completely clogged. We managed to get through it....one turn we couldn't even make until Jim backed up twice to get around the corner....and finally wended our way to the area of the Japanese Gardes and International Rose Test Gardens. We thought they might be less crowded because children wouldn't be interested in them. Not exactly. No children but less parking so just as congested. After a couple of trips around both gardens' parking areas we lucked into a space by the rose garden.
Entry to the International Rose Test Gardens.
There are over 10,000 roses here with 600+ varieties. It's a rose-lover's and flower photographer's paradise. My mother was an avid rose gardener and would have been blown away. We wouldn't have been able to get her to leave.
All these roses are taken care of by mainly volunteer workers. The staff consists of one horticulturist, two summer caretakers, master gardeners, volunteers and community service workers. It's amazing.....we didn't see a single leaf with black-spot, no thrips, no white-flies, no aphids, nothing but perfect foliage. We've grown roses and know how much work it is to keep these pests at bay. The information sheet says they spray every two or three weeks. Spraying 10,000+ plants is mind-boggling.
I couldn't resist taking pictures of as many as time and rain permitted. Here are a few of them....note all the perfect foliage.
All these colors on one bush! Named "Heaven on Earth."
After the rain had started......
About 20 minutes into our time in the garden the rain started. It wasn't a light, misty rain, but heavy enough to require rain jackets and umbrellas.
Rose gardens in the rain. The group under umbrellas in the middle was on a tour. Unfortunate timing.
We walked around for a bit longer and then headed for the Japanese Gardens where we discovered a long uphill walk to get there plus the tickets cost $7.75 for seniors. We would have certainly been willing to buy tickets if we had been able to spend more than an hour in the garden and it hadn't been raining, but by this time our shoes were getting soaked which was not what Jim needed to accompany his cold. We also wanted to get back to the campground with ample time to install the new water heater valve so we headed back.
Portland is a typical big city with heavy traffic no matter what time of day it is. We did see one very beautiful neighborhood as we drove down the hill from the park. We would have loved to see more of the beautiful residential areas but there hasn't been enough time.
We got back to the campground by the time we'd set as our goal and Jim was able to get the new part installed without too much trouble, although he did get drenched in the process. He also fixed our leaking exterior water hose while he was at it. As I've said before, RVs and water.......
The rain has quit. We'll head off tomorrow for Warrenton, a tiny town on the northwest coast of Oregon near Astoria. The biggest challenge will be to figure out how to get through or around Portland in the morning. I'm working on it.
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